Pakomio Maori: red-haired, blue-eyed key to Easter Island's prehistoric past

Robert LangdonII uslratian alional University

Anyone who spends more than a few days on EasterIsland and can converse in Spanish with the islanders soonbecomes aware that they are endlessly fascinated by thevariations in each others' skin colors. Katherine ScoresbyRoutledge, the English archaeologist, who spent almost 17months on the island in ]914-15, was the first to note thispeculiarity in print. In her book The Mystery of Easlerisland. she said that Roggeveen's description of theislanders as being 'of all shades of colour' was 'stillaccurate' and that they themselves were 'very conscious ofthe variations'. She went on:

... when we were collecting genealogies, they werequite ready to give the colour of even remote relations:'Great-aunt Susan', it would be unhesitatingly stated,was 'white', and 'Great-aunt Jemima black'. The lastreal ariki, or chief, was said to be quite white... lt isobvious that we are dealing with a mixed race, butthis only takes us part of the way, as the mixture mayhave taken place either before or after they reachedthe island (Routledge 1919:221).

[n my book The Lost Caravel (Langdon 1975) and itsrevised and expanded successor The Losl Caravel Re­explored (Langdon 1988a), I put forward an explanation forwhat the Easter Islanders find so fascinating. I argued thatthey are descended from two distinct stocks, Polynesian andEuropean: that their European ancestors were members of thecrew of the Spanish caravel San Lesmes that disappeared ona voyage from the Strait of Magellan to the East Indies in1526.

I summarised my Hispano-Polynesian theory and putfon: ard my interpretation of Easter Island's prehistory as awhole in an article in RNJ 9( I) (Langdon 1995a). Threewriters - Erika Hagelberg (1995) and Paul Balm and JohnFlenley (1995) - disputed aspects of my case in the same issue.They also expressed the view that the recent discovery ofbones of the Polynesian rat, Rattus concolor, throughout aI,OOO-year-old habitation site at Anakena indicated thatPolynesians were the island's first settlers and challenged meto explain how that discovery could be accommodated undermy scenario. I am pleased to respond. But first things first.The problems of the distant prehistoric past cannot be solvedwithout first solving those of more recent times. So my firsttask must be to answer Hagelberg's criticisms of my case forsettlement by Hispano-Polynesians. To do that intelligibly, Imust fi rst summarise the debate so far.

My case is that the San Lesme ., with a crew of about 53men, including Basques, ran aground at Amanu, 800 km eastof Tahiti. The crew refloated the ship by pushing their fourhea y iron cannon overboard and then proceeded westward toRa'iatea, 200 kl1l NW of Talliti. There some of the men

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settled and took Polynesian wives. Later, some of theirHispano-Polynesian descendants were drifted to Ra'ivavae inthe Austral Group whence some of their descendants reachedEaster Island, about 2,000 miles eastward. This was in about1680. Long-resident American Indians were then the island'sonly inhabitants. They had no resistance to the infectiousdiseases that the Hispano-Polynesians and early Europeanexplorers brought with them and had largely been wiped outas an ethnic entity by the time of Cook's visit in 1774.

The principal - but not the only - evidence for my Easter[sland hypothesis comprises numerous descriptions ofEuropean-looking Easter Islanders from Roggeveen's timeonwards and the discovery, in ]971, that 18 Easter Islanderswith no known non-Easter Island ancestors were/are carriersof the HLA genes A29, B 12 that are especially commonamong Basques. All ] 8 islanders with these 'Basque' genesdescend from a single man, Pakomio Maori, through his twowives, Terive Meitota and Angata. In 1886, Pakomio wasestimated to be about 70 years old, or, 'at least the Biblicalthree score and ten' as the surgeon of the USS Mohican,George H. Cooke (1899:713,719), put it. Pakomio had blueeyes, red hair, a light skin and was remarkably European­looking.

My view that Easter Island had an Anlerican Indianpopulation before Hispano-Polynesians arrived there has beenreached as a result of my own investigations - not because [am 'a bullish supporter of Thor Heyerdahl's views', asHagelberg (1995:17) wrongly asserted. However, I am inaccord with Heyerdahl that there were two prehistoricmigrations from South America. The first, in the firstmillenium of the Christian era, could only have been fromEcuador or northern Peru.· It is needed to account for theisland's distinctive domestic fowls of contact times andalmost a dozen cultivated plants of Anlerican origin orprovenance (Langdon 1982, 1988b, 1989a, 1989b, 1992,] 993, 1995b~ Langdon and Tryon 1983). The secondmigration was evidently by people of the Tiahuanaco cultureand must have occurred in about 1100 AD. [t is needed toaccount for the island's megalithic architecture and statuary,including the structures called tupa that closely resemble theAndean chullpa that I described and pictured in RNJ last year(Langdon 1994).

I claimed in Langdon (I 995a) that the recent findings of astudy by Hagelberg et a/ (1994) in which mitochondrial DNAwas extracted from [2 prehistoric Easter Island skeletons did'not put the slightest dint' in my own case. This was because(I) radiocarbon specialists now consider the date for oneskeleton used in the study to be invalid: (2) although theremaining II skeletons have been radiocarbon-dated to the]680-1868 period, they are likely to be nearer in age to 1868than 1680 because of Easter Island's damp climate: (3)

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mtDNA evidence cannot 'confirm' the Polynesian affinities ofthe island's original settlers, as Hagelberg el at claimed,because no one has established that those people werePolynesians; (4) if all 11 skeletons are those of post-1680Hispano-Polynesians, then they cannot tell us anything aboutany pre-1680 American Indians; and (5) as mtDNA is passeddown only in the female line, it cannot yield informationabout Easter Islanders of San Lesmes descent on their maleside.

In replying to these claims, Hagelberg said my Hispano­Polynesian theory was interesting and merited consideration,but was 'irrelevant to the fundamental question of EasterIsland origins'. In fact, J did not say that it was relevant tothat question. I said (p.9) that if my explanation for theisland's 'Basque' genes was correct, then 'Polynesians of theearly centuries of the Christian era could not have been theisland's only prehistoric settlers, as one camp of Rapanuispecialists claims'. Nevertheless, if my explanation is correctand the I I undisputedly post-1680 skeletons of the Hagelbergstudy are those of Hispano-Polynesians, then mtDNAextracted from them certainly cannot tell us anything aboutthe island's original inhabitants. Hence, the Basque genes are

relevant, indirectly, to the fundamental question of who theoriginal settlers were.

Not surprisingly, Hagelberg could not explain how themtD A she analysed does point to a lack of significantprehistoric contact between Polynesia and the Americas. Thebest she could do was to say (p. I7) that if - as others haveassumed - Easter Island did have only one set of prehistoricsettlers, then the presence of 'Polynesian-specific geneticmarkers' in Easter Islanders would point to settlement onlyfrom the west. In other words, the only thing that Hagelberg'sevidence does tell us is that people with Polynesian affinitieswere living on Easter Island in 1680-1868. This is not indispute. What is in dispute is whether those people werePolynesians of unmixed ancestry or of part-European descentfrom the San Lesmes.

Having gone out on a limb without having consulted mytwo books, Hagelberg would now like to believe (pp.17-l8)that Pakomio Maori's 'Basque' genes were 'introduced by aBasque or Spanish sailor in the nineteenth century' and thatthe evidence for his red hair and blue eyes is unreliable. Butshe presents no evidence to support these ideas. By contrast, rhave published a bookful of evidence to support my case andthere is yet more that I can bring forward here.

In the first place, I have pointed out that about 19.5 percent of Basques in the Spanish province of Guipuzcoa haveblue, grey or green eyes and that the same percentage obtainsin the (Celtic provinces of Galicia. From 10.4 to 15.5 percem of the people of those pro inces have red or fair hair. Ihave also published the names and places of domicile of threeBasques, all single men, who were in the San Lesmes' crew of31 men when it left Spain in 1525. They were Ortuno deAlango, pilot, of Portugalete, near Bilbao: Juan de Arratan,able seaman, of Bilbao: and Juan de Bolivar, chaplain, ofValle de Salcedo. At least three of several other Basques,whose names I have also published, are likely to have joined

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the San Lesmes at the Strait of Magellan after a largecompanion vessel was wrecked there and the survivors had tobe accommodated in the caravel and two other ships. On a prorata basis, the ..:araveJ's crew on leaving the strait would havebeen 53, comprising 20 Galicians, six Basques, 14 otherSpaniards, four Flemings or Germans, si Italians and threeothers (Langdon 1988a:41-2,279,281-4)1

The earliest vital records for individual Easter Islandersare the baptismal marriage and death records of the earlyCatholic missionaries. They are preserved in theArchbishop's office in Tahiti. However, although missionwork began on Easter Island in 1864, no such records havesurvived for the period down to early 1871 when aFrenchman, 1. B. O. Dutrou-Bornier, who ran a sheep ranchon the island from 1868, forced the missionaries to flee toMangareva with more than 150 of their followers. Therecords have also been lost for the seven years and more thatthe Easter Islanders spent on Mangareva. This was untilDutrou-Bornier's assassination in 1876 made it safe for thesurvivors to return home. As Pakomio Maori's first marriagetook place before 1862-63 when labor recruiters took himand about 1400 other islanders to Pem, there is naturally norecord of that event. or is there a record of his fi rst wife'sdeath, his baptism on Easter Island, or his marriage onMangareva to his second wife, Angata. The first timePakomio does figure in the mission records is in ovember1879 when Father Hippolyte Roussel, who had just visitedEaster Island from Mangareva, gave an account of his visit toBishop Jaussen in Tahiti. 'Pakomio, the Easter Islander whohas come from Mangareva', he said, had been busy roundingup stock belonging to the mission. Two years earlier, deathand deportation had reduced the island's population to onlyI 10 souls (Langdon 1988a:215).

On another visit to Easter Island in January 1883, Rousselconducted nine weddings and baptised 22 children. One of thebrides was Pakomio's daughter Rita (short for Eritapeta orElizabeth, otherwise Isabel or Isavera) by his first wife. Thegroom was Anatareme Ko Ahoa, later l<Jlown as AndresHaoa

2Two of the newly-baptised children were offspring of

Pakomio and Angata. One did not survive infancy. The other,Maria Matarena (Magdalena), lived until 1950. By workingbackwards, it can be shown that both she and Rita inheritedtheir father's' Basque' genes.

A complete census of the Easter Island population wastaken on 8 February 1886, the day that Father AlbertMontiton arrived on a 10-day visit (McCall 1976:310- J8).The census lists 65 men, 41 women, and 52 children under 1­years - 23 boys and 29 girls. It gives their 'heathen' andbaptismal na.mes, and fathers' names in the case of thechildren. Pakomio and Angata had had another daughter bthen, Maria Renga, known later as Hilaria. Three otherdaughters and a son, Nicolas, were born to them betweenabout 1887 and 1898. However, because the island had noresident missionary then and visiting missionaries were rare,no baptismal records appear to exist for them. Nor is there anydocumentary record of Pakomio's death which occurred someyears before Mrs Routledge's arrival in Ma.rch 191.+. Angata,

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then a 'frail old woman with grey hair and expressive eyes'and a 'magnetic personal iti, died about a year later(Routledge 1919:145,149).

In collecti ng genealogies, Mrs Routledge (p.223-7) foundthat knowledge offamily connections was 'often greater thanwould be found among Europeans'. In her view, obtaininggenealogical knowledge was important, for if there had been'two peoples on Easter Island', then the division of theIslanders into clans was one place 'where we must at leastlook for it'. However, only in one instance could she getbeyond the great-grandfather of her informant, and for manyof her informants helping her to compile family trees was'not a very popular line of research'. Those that she didcompile are now preserved in the library of the RoyalGeographical Society, London (Routledge 1911-23). They donot include a tree for the Pakomio fami Iy, but they often statethat the persons recorded had red fai r or black hai randwhite skin.

Six of Pakomio Maori's seven children by his two wiveswho survived to adulthood figure in a census taken by aSpanish priest, Father Bienvenido de Estella (I 921 :60-74),during a visit to Easter Island in 1918. All were married bythen and most had children of their own.

On 31 December 1934, another census was taken by IsraelDrapkin (1935), a Chilean scientist with the Franco-Belgiane pedition of ALfred Metraux and Henri Lavachery. Thiscensus, in the Chilean fashion, lists all the islanders by theirdual surnames (father's and mother's), together with theirbaptismal names, sex, age, civil status, number of children inthe case of women, and grado de mesli:aje (percentage ofmixed blood). By that time, Pakomio's daughter Rita wasdead. But three of her six children by Andres Haoa (surnamedHaoa Pakomio) were still living, as were five children by oneof them, plus Pakomio's six children by Angata (surnamedPakomio Angata), their spouses, and a total of31 children bythem. All were listed as being of pure Easter Island descent.The total islander population then stood at 456. Of these,Drapkin listd 159 as 'pure-bloods'. However, the number wasactually higher, as several islanders who had been born inTahiti of Easter Island parents were listed as Tahitians - anerror that affected the status of their children.

Between Drapkin's time and the early L970s, severalbiological investigators carried out tests among the reputedlypure-blooded islanders (e.g. Sandoval and Wilhelm 1945). Asthey usually published the names and ages of their subjectsand as such people are frequently mentioned in books, anyoneinterested can acquire a good knowledge of the familyhistories of the pure-bloods from published information.Thus, when I went to Easter Island in October 1977 under afellowship from the Australian ational University with theexpress purpose of learning everything rcould about PakomioMaori, his descendants and others, I went armed withgenealogies that I had compiled in Australia. I leftphotocopies of them at home so that afterwards I couldreadily identify anything I altered or added on Easter Island.My experience as a genealogist was the same as MrsRoutledge's. Almost as a matter of course, my informants told

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me the skin color, hair color and eye color of people underdiscussion.

Hagelberg has opined that my claim that Pakomio Maorihad red hair, blue eyes, etc. must be based on anecdotalevidence. Tilis is not so. I first heard of Pakomio's lightfeatures from a noted Easter Island woman, VictoriaRapahango, who remembered him from her girlhood. I laterfound ways to verify her information.

I gave an account of what Mrs Rapahango told me in aletter to my wife of October 13, 1977, three days after Iarrived on Easter Island. I said I had sat next to a Chileanwoman on my flight from Tahiti and had spoken Spanishthroughout the night as if I had never stopped speaking it' 24years earlier after returning to Australia from four years inSouth America and Spain. I went on:

Within a few hours of my arrival, RosaCardinali [in whose pension I am staying] or her 27­year-old daughter had put me in touch with two of theoldest local residents - Jose Fati and VictoriaRapahango - and during the past three days I have spentmany hours talking to them, and to several other people.After treading a little gingerly at first, I found that noislander was at all averse to having a 16th centurySpaniard for an ancestor - in fact, that they readilyaccepted my theory as the explanation for the frequentoccurrence of light skins, hair and eyes, and Europeanfeatures among thei r compatriots of pure descent.Victoria Rapahango, who will be 80 next year, and whohas a fantastic knowledge of island genealogies andhistory, told me long before I had said anything aboutlost Spaniards that Pakomio Maori (the ancestor of allthe people with 'Basque genes') had red hair, blueeyes, etc.: that she well remembered him; that he haddied when she was 10 or I I years old from a handwound caused by the fin of fish that became infected.Victoria estimates that he must have been about 84when he died, which taJ<:es his birth date back to 1826or thereabouts. This, and the fact that blue eyes arerecessive and can only be passed on if you have twoparents with blue-eye genes, virtually eliminates (ordoes eliminate) all possibility of modern sailors beingresponsible for the light features of E.I.: butneedless to say I am collecting every other scrap ofevidence to hammer the point home.

My statement that Victoria would be 80 next year, i.e.1978, was based on a genealogy I had compiled in Australia.In fact she celebrated her 80th birthday during my stay on theisland. This makes Pakomio's date of birth 1823 or 1824,according to her reckoning. However, Victoria also told methat Pakomio could have died as late as 1909 or 1910, with1909 the 'more probable' date, which would bring his birthdate forward to 1825 or even 1826.

The discrepancy between Cooke's estimate of Pakomio'sage in 1886 and Victoria's estimate of his age at death will betaken up later on. For the moment, I will deal only withevidence for Pakomio's light features as Hagelberg claimed

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that this kind of evidence is unreliable and subject toexaggeration.

Victoria Rapahango' s actual words in relation toPakomio's features were that he had ojos a:ules (blue eyes),cabello rubio rojo (red hair) and skin that was blanquito,which I took to mean 'very white'. He was very strong andhad neither a beard nor hair on his chest. '1 used to see him alot', Victoria said.

Pakomio's daughter Rita by his first wife was known toVictoria as Isavera (Isabel). She was 'very like her father', butdid not have his light skin. On the other hand, she hadfreckJes, as did most members of her family.

Victoria described Pakomio's second wife Angata asmorena, which my dictionary defines as brown, dark-brown,dark, tawny, swarthy. She had big brown eyes and black hair.Maria Magdalena, her first daughter by Pakoniio, was morenapolida, and her husband, Timoteo Pate Vakatukuonge, was ofthe same complexion.

Hilaria, the second daughter, had bluish eyes (ojos unpoco a::ul), reddish hair and a white skin. Her husband, Jose,Atan Aharekaihiva, a son of the island's second last king whodied in 1892, was moreno polido with black hair.

As Nicolas Pakomio, the only surviving sibling of MariaMagdalena and Hilaria lived next door to Rosa Cardinali'spension at the time of my visit, I took the opportunity to askhim about the coloration of his sisters and he confirmed whatVictoria said. icolas, then about 79, was partially blind. 1described him in my notebook as 'quite European-looking'with brown eyes.

In the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, a week or twolater, I found two photographs of Pakomio taken during theUSS .llohlcan 's visit of 1886. One, in which he posed withonly a hami or loin-cloth on, undoubtedly proved that hisskin was white: both proved that his hair was certaily light incolor: and both suggested that his age, then, was round about70.

The only other writer who has mentioned Pakomio's lightfeatures in print is the anthropologist Grant McCall(1980: 139 . He says that when Pakomio returned to hishomeland after being kidnaped by the Peruvians, he waslanded at Hanga 0 Ho'onu. As the skiff taking him ashorebobbed towards the beach, Pakomio pulled a borrowedwoman's shawl over his head and shoulders so that hisenemies in that landing place 'could not recognise him by hisextraordinary red hair'.

Hilaria's light features are mentioned in Heyerdahl's book. Iku-.-lku, a popular account of the orwegian ArchaeologicalExpedition to Easter Island of 1956. The mayor of that timewas Pedro Atan Pakomio, the eldest son of Hilaria and JoseAtan. Heyerdal11 (1958: 141,23 I) described him as having thinlips, a sharp, narrow nose, and light skin, adding that he didnot look like a native at all'. Pedro told Heyerdahl that there

had been two kinds of people on the island in former times.Some were dark and some 'quite fair-skinned like you fromthe mainland, with light hai r". Although they were whitepeople, they were genuine Easter Islanders. His own familyhad included many of the fair type. These included his own

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mother and one of his aunts whose hair had been' muchredder' than that of Heyerdahrs Nordic wife. Heyerdahladded that the mayor's brothers, Esteban, Juan and Atan, alsohad 'nothing of the native in their appearance'. All wouldhave 'passed unnoticed in any street in orthern Europe'.

In 1950, an Argentine scientist, Marcelo Bormida (195 I),used scientifically-devised color scales in a study of the hairand eye color of 35 reputedly pure-blooded Easter Islanders ­17 men and 18 women. Of these, 22 were descendants ofPakomio. Tn a sea of black hair and brown eyes, Bormidafound three cases of reddish hair, two cases of grey-green eyes(ojos pardO-I erdosos) and one pair of eyes lighter than brown

Pakomio .l/aori .in an ancient hami or IOIl7-c1oth. poses.fora photograph during the ['S.' .1 lohican 's I'islt 10 I:'ast(!rIsland in 1886. InCidentally. he also revealed the II'hllene,'sofhis kin and the Iightne.u ofhis hair. despite a.flGlt' 117 thl:!photograph.

( o. -l on his scale). One of the people with reddish hair. aman, was described as having cabello." castalios (chestnut­colored hair): the other two cases were of women'> hose hairwas said to have Iintes castalio ." amanllento (chestnut andyellowish tints). The light-eyed people were a man and a

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woman. Bonnida was clearly surprised by them for he wrote(pp.190-1): 'The racial purity of the individuals with greyish­green eyes was assured to us by our sources of information'.Bormida gave the names, ages and other details of his 35subjects (p.184), but, unfortunately, did not state who thelight-featured people were.

A decade and a half later, when the Canadian MedicalExpedition to Easter Island (METEI 1964-65) recorded theeye color, hair color, skin color, etc. of the entire indigenouspopulation, 15 of Bormida's subjects including 10 ofPakomio's descendants, were either dead or absent from theisland. Three cases of dark brown hair and one case of darkhazel eyes were noted on that occasion anlOng pure-bloodeddescendants of Pakomio; but no cases of grey-green eyes. Thedark hazel eyes belonged to Angelina Atan Pakomio, a sisterof Heyerdahl's mayor. They were almost certainly thoseclassified as NO.4 on Bormida's scale in 1950. So Bormida'stwo people with grey-green eyes must have been among his15 subjects who did not figure in the METEI tests.

[n December 1984, when Sergio Rapu, then Governor ofEaster Island, visited Canberra, I asked him if he couldidentify the two light-eyed people from Bormida's lists. Hethought the woman was Maria Gracia Pate Pakomio, but hecould not identify the man. As 34 years had then passed sinceBormida's tests and as Sergio could scarcely have been bornat that time, I was not surprised that he came up with only onename, and that, according to METEI, Maria Gracia actuallyhad brown eyes! But, to judge from a photograph of her onp.58 of the second edition of Father Sebastian Englert's bookLa Tierra de Hotu A/atu 'a, one could well be excused forthinking that she might have had grey-green eyes. Englert,who lived on Easter Island for 35 years, described MariaGracia as being 'of pure Rapanui descent', but, like manyother writers, he was mystified by the European appearanceof such people. In discussing this matter, he wrote:

The person better placed than anyone toobserve the physical characteristics of the islanders offormer times was Brother Eugene [Eyraud] who, in1864, lived among them for nine months. As this kindof observation does not require scientific training, thefollowing statement of his merits our confidence: 'Theircomplexion, althougll somewhat coppery, differs verylittle from that of Europeans, many of them beingcompletely white. Their faces come nearer to theEuropean type than do those of other islanders inOceania.'

Englert (1974: 163-4) added that if one studied thephotographs of islanders of pure race on p. 212 of Routledge'sbook as well as in his own, and if one also looked at thecomplexion and features of such people who were still livingon the island, one could not but make Eyraud's observationone's own and 'recognise a surprising likeness to the peoplesof Europe' .

Two of the islanders pictured on p.212 of Routledge'sbook are Juan Tepano and his mother Viriamo who appear tohave been unrelated to the Pakomio family - at least inhistorical times. Tepano, who was born in about 1872, served

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in the Chilean Army. In 1914-15, he was the headman ofHangaroa and Routledge's principal infonnant. His mother,Viriamo, born about 1839, was then the island's oldestwoman. Routledge (1919:227-8) gives a detailed account of

Maria Garcia Pate Pakomio, born 1911, a grand-daughteroJPakomia aJpure Easter Island decent.

Viriamo's ancestry and history, saying that some of herancestors were white and some dark, that Viriamo herselfwas

dark, and that Tepano, in his own words, had taken after hismother. In the light of this, a description of Tepano by theBelgian scientist Lavachery (1935:44) about two decadesafter Routledge's time is especially interesting:

Juan Tepano! After so many months passed sideby side [with him] it is difficult for me to describe theimpression he first made on me. He is rather small,with wavy, grey hair. His skin is brown. He shaves hisscanty beard. Even though he is an Easter Islander ofunmixed descent, Tepano could be Spanish or ltalian.His racial characteristics [as a Polynesian?] are notapparent at first sight.

The foregoing evidence should suffice to show that EasterIslanders of the past did not have to have red hair and blueeyes to strike outsiders as European-looking. On the otherhand, the evidence provides no good reason to suppose thatPakomio Maori did not have the features that VictoriaRapahango attributed to him. So what of Hagelberg's claimthat the islanders' European features could be the result of'encounters with sailors of visiting ships in post-Roggeveen

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Juan Tepano (1872-19-17) and his mother Viriamo. two pure-blooded Easterislanders photographed by Mrs Routledge in 191-1. in 1935, the Belgian

scientist Henri Lavachery thought Tepano could be taken for a Spaniard orllalian.

times'? What of her claim that Pakomio's 'Basque' genes'may well have been introduced by a Basque or Spanish sailorin the nineteenth century'?

The first point to be made is that no Rapanui pregnanciesare likely to have resulted from Roggeveen's own visit. Onlyone landing was made on that occasion - on 10 April 1722­when 134 Dutchmen went ashore 'armed with musket,cartridge pouch and sword'. The islanders pressed roundthem in great numbers and although the Dutchmen 'madesigns with the hand' that they should 'stand out of the way',10 or 12 were shot dead after one tried to seize a musket. Therest fled. Some trading - strictly of a commercial kind - latertook place, for no more than two or three old women wereseen. 'The young women and daughters', Roggeveenrecorded, 'did not show themselves' (Sharp 1970: 91-1 00).

Roggeveen's companion Carl Friedrich Behrens saidmuch the same thing: the 'young women and lasses did notcome forward r---,...---...",."=--,,.=

amongst the crowd'.On the other hand,Behrens noted thatthe islanders ingeneral were 'brownIike the Span iards' ,but some were 'prettyblack', others 'quitewhite' and yet otherswere of a reddishcomplexion, as ifburnt by the sun(Dalrymple 1771: 93).

When theGonzalez expedition,the next Europeanvisitors, arrived intwo ships inNovember 1770, theircrews, in the main,spent most of the timeon board. When theydid go ashore, they were under strict orders not to interferewith the islanders. By then, however, the island already had aseemingly sizeable part-European population. The pilot Juande Herve, who made a circuit of the island in a boat, wrote:

They [the islanders] are in hue like aquadroon with smooth hair and short beards, andthey in no way resemble the Indians of the SouthAmerican continent; and if they wore clothing likeourselves, they might very well pass for Europeans(Corney 1908: 127).

Another pilot, Francisco Antonio de Aguera, noted thatthe islanders'. appearance was 'thoroughly pleasing' and'tallying with Europeans more than with Indians'. Their hairwas generally chestnut-colored, but in some it was black andin others it tended to be red or a cinnanlOn tint (el pelo res)castano... algunos 10 tienen negro, y otros tiran a rubio, 6acanelado) (Corney 1908: 127; Mellen 1986:284).

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A pregnancy or two could conceivably have resulted fromCaptain Cook's two-day visit in 1774 because the scientist J.R. Forster noted that several of the crew 'had some favours ofthe Girls & found them by no means very shy, if they onlycame up to their price' (Hoare 1982:476). But these briefencounters could hardly account for the findings ofM. Rollin,a medical officer with the expedition of the French explorerLa Perouse, who became Easter Island's fourth Europeanvisitor in 1786. Except in color, Rollin wrote, the features ofthe islanders hardly differed from those of Europeans. Thehair was generally black, but in a 'a few instances' it was fair(Milet-Mureau 1807:3: 161).

La Perouse's crews spent only eight or nine hours ashore.He himself and 70 of his men landed at Hangaroa soon afterdawn when from 400 to 500 islanders crowded around them.They included at least 150 women who 'offered their favoursto anyone willing to give them a present'. But all this was

merely a means to acovetous end. 'Whilethese women were

'~'>"'.::. teasing us', La Perousewrote, 'our hats werebeing snatched from ourheads and ourhandkerchiefs from ourpockets'. These trickswent on 'throughout themorning' while LaPerouse exami nedarchaeological sites inthe vicinity of Hangaroa.When he returned,'almost everyone washatless and with nohandkerchiefs',including himself. As nocases of lost trouserswere reported and as LaPerouse statedspecifically that no

Frenchman 'took advantage of some girls of 13 or 14 whowere offered to them, it seems safe to say that no Europeangenes were contributed to the Easter Island gene pool on thisoccasion (Dunmore 1994:57-69).

The thieving propensities of the Easter Islanders and thefew provisions that their island had to offer were a greatdisappointment to La perouse. The upshot was that he gavethe island a decidedly poor reputation as a place to visit in thepublished accunt of his voyage. Cook did much the same forhe, too, got little in the way of food and water. otsurprisingly, few ships visited the island during the next halfcentury for the accounts of Cook and La Perouse were the onlyones then available that gave its position accurately.

Only seven visitors are known from first-hand evidence forthe period from 1816 to 1826 when Pakomio Maori was born- if the maximum latitude for error is allowed in the estimatesof his age cited above. Those visitors were:

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.II/en European genes had lillie chance ofbeing introduced to Easter island in the early19th centUl}' when visiting sailors could get no nearer to shore than this. The cfrawing

depicts the Ru.\:sian ship Rurick at the island in 1816.

I. The Russian exploring ship Rurick (Captain Otto vonKotzebue) which arrived at Hangaroa on 16 March 1816.Numerous islanders swam out to the ship with bananas, yamsand sugarcane which they traded for pieces of iron. But whentwo boats with 22 well-armed men tried to land, about 600islanders opposed them and had to be frightened away withshots of powder. A later attempt to land was no moresuccessful. So the Russians continued on their way, havingseen only two women (Choris 1822: 10). To Kotzebue( 1821: 18), most of the islanders were copper-colored, but afew were 'rather white'.

2. An unidentified ship, for which a log is held in theWhaling MuseUI'll, antucket, stood off the island on 17March 1821. As the log begins on 8 August 1820, the sllip islikely to have been either the whaler Factor (Captain JohnMaxcey) or the President (Captain Shubael Cottle), both ofwhich left Nantucket on the following day. No contact withthe islanders is mentioned (Unidentified 1820-21; Starbuck1964:232-3).

3. The Sydney trading vessel Suny (Captain ThomasRaine) which hove to off the island on 24 March 1821 in

returning to Sydney from Valparaiso with a cargo of wheat.The Suny later called at Pitcairn. Back home, Raine told the. )'dne,I' Ga::elle that excited Easter Islanders had swum off tohis ship. Six had been briefly taken on board as 'a sufficientspecimen of the inhabitants of the island'. The Australian.\faga::ine later published an extract from Raine's journal onhis visit to Pitcairn in which he said: I remarked at EasterIsland that I thougllt the natives there resembled Europeans;

but here 1 saw the features of Englishmen and heard themspeak in my native tongue' (De Salis 1969:36-38).

4. The British whaler Coquette, which stood off the islandon 23 September 1821 on its way home to England. The onlyentry in a journal kept by one William Cash (1820-23) is:'Tltis island is inhabited by savages'.

5. The antucket whaler Foster (Captain Shubael Chase)which called on 10 January 1822 and was treated with 'greatcivility by the 5 or 6,000 natives'. The sltip was on its wayhome from a voyage that began on 22 July 1819. [t obtained'some potatoes, fruit, etc.'. (Stackpole 1953: 282; Starbuck1964:228-9).

6. The Nantucket whaler Paragon (Captain HenryBunker) which called some time in 1822. A boat party tradedwith islanders of both sexes who swam out to the boat whichwas 'lying at the back of the surf (Stackpole 1953:282-3).

7. The British exploring vessel HMS Bl05:som (Captain F.W. Beechey) that called on 16 November 1825. SomeEnglishmen went ashore in boats. Seentingly friendlyislanders swam out to them, sometimes throwing thembananas, roots and other products. But when the visitors

landed, the islanders plunderedthem and pelted them withstones. Several were wounded.No European cloth was seenamong the islanders. This madeBeechey (1831: I:51) think thatthey had had 'littlecommunication with Europeans'or had benefited little from it. Henoted also that the islanders had'aquiline and well-proportioned'noses and jet black hair, but thatone man's hair was 'a reddish­ash gray'.

The ethnographic evidence forthe entire period from 1722 to1826 must surely leave no doubtthat opportunities for sexualcontact between visitingEuropean sai lors and EasterIslanders were usually non­existent and, at best, minimal.Yet variegated complexions,European features, red and fairhair were remarked on from thebeginning. As blue eyesfrequently go together with red

. and fair hair, there is every reasonto believe that the island had its blue-eyed people, too. So itis fruitless to seek to attribute Pakomio Maori's light featuresand 'Basque' genes to some visiting sailor of the post­Roggeveen period. Easter Island already had a part-Europeanpopulation long before he was born.

Bahn and Flenley (1995:20) scoffed at my theory thatEaster Island's original inhabitants were American Indianswho died out as an ethnic entity because they had no

Rapa Nui Journal 115 Vol 9 (4) December 1995

resistance to the alien diseases that Pakornio's part-European,part-Polynesian ancestors and the Roggeveen and Gonzalezexpeditions brought to the island. They ridiculed the idea thatAlberto de Olaondo, a senior officer of the Peru-basedGonzalez expedition, could have correctly identified maize,the white potato and manioc - three plants of American originthat he reported under cultivation. If those plants had reallybeen present in 1770, they said, then Cook's scientist J. R.Forster would surely have seen them in 1774. However, Cookhimself would not have endorsed this view. On leaving EasterIsland after only two days, he wrote in his journal:

... the Spaniards, .. .l have been told, visited [theseislanders] in 1769 (sic).. .lts probable they made a longerstay at this isle than we did and may favour the worldwith a better account of it than I can, [as] a stay of twodays was by no means sufficient for this task (Beaglehole1961 :359).

In retrospect, Cook's statement is ironical in the extreme.The Spaniards did stay at the island longer than he did andthey saw more of it. But 138 years passed before the world wasfavored with an account of their visit: an English translationof their records by Bolton Glanvill Corney (1908).Unfortunately, Corney blindly accepted the view - firstpropounded by J. R. Forster (1778:277-84) - that there hadbeen no prehistoric contact between America and Polynesia

4

Accordingly, whenever he encountered evidence in theGonzalez records that contradicted this view, he either left itout or 'corrected' it without giving his readers any indicationthat he had done this.

Thus, the passage in which Olaondo reported seeing maize,white potatoes and manioc under cultivation was entirelyomitted, as were references to manioc in other documents.Another such reference was mistranslated as taro, and yetothers were left untranslated or were otherwise obfuscated(Langdon 1989, 1995b). The overall result was that Corney'swork entrenched the belief that American Indians had playedno part in Easter Island prehistory and it perverted the courseof Rapanui studies for the next eight decades.

Not until Mellen (1986) published the original texts of theSpanish records 216 years after their authors wrote them couldanyone begin to realise the extent of Corney's balefulinfluence. He had not simply suppressed or altered a few smallbut crucial items of ethnobotanical information, his censorshiphad inhibited the realistic evaluation of much other suchevidence. This included, for example, the discovery on EasterIsland in 1913 of two more plants of American origin - thepineapple and 26-c1uomosome cotton - that were growing wildin isolated places. It included the sweet potato, whoseAmerican origin remained uncertain until the 1920s. And soon. This, in turn, inhibited scholarly attitudes towards theKon-Tikj expedition, to Heyerdahl's American Indians in thePacific, to the work of the orwegian ArchaeologicalExpedition of 1955-56, and to my own theories.

Not surpri~ingly, present-day scholars who have espousedthe Forsterian view of Polynesian prehistory refuse to acceptthe Gonzalez expedition's newly-revealed ethnobotanicalevidence. Nor do they want to think seriously about Pakomio

Maori's red hair, blue eyes and 'Basque' genes. 'We prefer toapply OCcan1'S razor and adopt the least complex solution',Balm and Flenley have said. Alas, history is not about personalpreferences and least complex solutions. It is about whatactually happened in the past. Which brings me to the questionof the Polynesian rat, Rattus conca/or.

The Norwegian archaeologist Arne Skj01svold (1994: l14­l5) has reported the discovery of bones of R. conca/ort1uoughout a habitation site at Anakena that possibly date backto about A.D. 1000. In his view, the bones indicates aPolynesian presence on Easter Island from the 'very firstsettlement at Anakena'. This is because the rat, which hesays was obviously used for food, 'must have been broughtfrom somewhere in Polynesia' either purposely or as anaccidental stowaway in Polynesian canoes.

8ahn and Flenley (1995) have opined that Skj01svold'sdiscovery 'clearly affects' my Easter Island scenario - that 1must now 'presumably envisage' three sets of colonists: firstPolynesians, then Amerindians and finally Hispano­Polynesians. I doubt, however, that any change is called for tomy scenario. This is because over hundreds of thousands ­possibly rnillions - of years, the Polynesian rat probably gotabout the Pacific in its own particular way and succeeded incolonizing Easter Island without allY human aid as I havealready described (Langdon I995c).

Notes

1. The men were categorized according to their names andplaces of domicile.2. icolas Haoa and his daugl1ter Sonia two of the EasterIslanders who attended the Rapa Nui Rendezvous at Laramiein 1993, are descendants of this marriage and therefore ofPakomio.3. The Spanish term rubio in relation to a person's hair isambiguous. The dictionary definition is: red, reddish, ruddy:blond, fair, golden. By saying rubio raja, Victoria Rapahangoleft no doubt that Pakontio's hair was red.4. The four premises on which Forster's theory was basedwere: (I) no distant or accidental similarity existed betweenthe American and Pacific languages; (2) the color, form, habitof body and customs of the An1ericans and Pacific Islanderswere 'totally different'; (3) the wretchedness and small size ofAmerican sailing craft proved 'incontestably' that the PacificIslanders had not come from America; (4) America, itself, hadnot been peopled until a few centuries before the Spaniardsdiscovered it. The discovery in 1847 that the Quechua termkumar 'sweet potato' was virtually identical to the commonPolynesian term kumara 'sweet potato' undermined Forster'sfirst premise. The second was too sweeping to be valid.The t1tird was wrong: Forster evidently had never heard ofthe huge balsa rafts that carried cargo and passengers upand down the coasts of Ecuador and Peru. And the fourth isnow known to be wildly astray: at least one reputable scholarbelieves that man has probably been in the ew World for upto 100,000 years.

Rapa Nui Journal 116 Vol 9 (4) December 1995

117

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I eaglcbole. .I. C.. (cd). 1961. The JOIIl'llais oJCaplaill Cook 011 his Voyages ojDisco"el)" The /'oyage oj Ihe Hesoill/ioll and Ad"elllllre, 1772-1775.llakJuvt . oci(.1y. Cambridge.

Ikc,:hey. Fr~d(.';ck William. 183 I. Narmlil'e oja Voyage 10 Ihe Pacific alldl3~erillg '.I' Slrail .. Colburn and BwUey. LCRldoo.

Hlcrlvwido de I~<,tella. Father. 1921. Alis I'iajes a Pmclla. Editorial CervlUltes,SlUlllago de Chile.

Bonllida. Marcelo. 1951. omat logia de la Isla de Pascua. Rlllla, 4: 178-281.C3»Il. William. 1820-23. JOluual of "baler Coquerre. Free Public Library. New

BOOford. Mass. Micro[a.Im PMB 375. Tbe Library. Auwalian ationallJniY<Tsitv. Canberra.

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Cooke. George rI . 1899 Te Pilo Ie Ilelllla, kllOll'1I as Rapa Nlli, commolllyCfdled EaSIer 1.llI/ld... U.S. N;,tion.l MUSCLUll Annual R<:pott. 1897. pall1.689-723.

Come\. Bolton Glal1\'ill (cd.). 1908. Tlte "oyage oj Captaill 0011 FelipeCiolclde=.. .lo Easlerlslalld ill 1--0-1. flakJuyt Society. Cambridge.

Dahympk. Ale'uUlder. 1771. II Ilislorical Colleclioll oJllte Several Voyagesalld Oi.1 OI'ene,1 ill Ihe SOlllh Pacific OCl!tw. Vol. 2. The Author,Loodon

Dc. alis. Margan". 1969. Caplaill Thomas Raille: All Ear/yColollisl, TbeAuthor, vchle\.

Drapk.Ul. Isra~1. 193 , COlllribucioll al eSludio alllropologico de losPmcllellce•. Jotuua! de la • ociL1c d /\mcricani~·. N.S.27:265-302.

DWlmt're. Jobn. 1994. '111e JOlUl131 of Jean-Fran~i~de Galaup de la Pcrouse.1785-17 8 Vol. I. I1aklll\t So<.,;(.1\. Loodon.

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\Ie\",-dilllJ. '11101'.19-8 Aku-t1kll. Allen & L!n\\1O. U,ndon.- 'Old bl\\Ul . I·erdoo. Jr. 1961 .'Irchaeology oJEmler islalld: Heporls oj

lite \'ol'lIeglllll.ll'cltaeological Expedilioll 10 Eo lerl,l/lI/ulalld lite EaslPacific. Monograph 24. pl 1. dlool of /\mcnCall Rcseardl atld UleMu ewn of (....\ Mcxico. anta Fe.

Iloare. M".:hael 1::. (cd.). 1982 'IlIe 'Re.lO/lI/ioll' JOIIl'llal ojJohallli ReillitoidJo'orsler, 1--2-1--5 Ilaklu~l Society. LCIlCIOll,

,",ot/.ehue. Otto "011. 1821 .'1 /'oyage oj Discol'el)' illio Ihe SOlllhSea... I/I ... 1815-1 I ... LmgmWl, London.

I.:01gdoo. RohCt1. 1975. The 1.0051 Car(l\'el. Pacific Publications. S dney.-. J 982. NC\\ World cotlan as a clue to the P()I~ll 'ian past, in Jukk3 Siikala

(cd.). Oceallic SllIdies: Essays illliolloul' oJAl'lle A. Koskillell, Ilelsinki:Finl1l;h Anthropological oc;ety. Pl'. 179-92.

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-. 1992 1l1e capSIcum. :D1 Amc"C:tll c(.ldiOlCllt "ilh a place in the 1'01)ucsi30(re)past. III TOOl Dutton. Malcolm Ross and Darrell T'YOll (cds,). 'I1,eI allgllage Game: Paper. III l/elllOl) oj DOllald C. Laycock. Pa ifiI 111 g1l 1'<111:». anhcrra. PI' 227-3-1.199.1 The han3na as a ke) to eal'l\ Amen '~Ol :Uld POI\llesian bjstory.JOIIl'llal of Pa I/iC llil/ol). 28'1 -35199-1 hlt1l11,. l!loUg)lL' 011 the l(.11US Illlllall eepe :tIld h(lIIall momoko. and,,11\ lhe) ;hould mean 'Iong cars' 3J.ld 'short cars'· reply lO J:.mjly Mulloy.Rapil Sill JOlIl'llal. 8(.1) 75-8.

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Rapa ui Journal

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of 1770. Joul'lla{ ojPacific I!islOry, 30( I): 112-20.- - -. 1995c. Some iconoclastic thoug):lts about those Polynesian rat bones at

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Earliesl Illceplioll 10 Ihe Year 1876. Argo y- Antiquarian, New York.(Repr. of 1878 edn).

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miCRlall.hlivCTsit)'. Canherra.

A Note to Rapanuiphiles: Some of our subscribers havemade inquiries about renewals. Check the date on yourmailing label; it gives the month/year when it is time torenew your subscription. We also enclose a notice inyour copy of the Journal when that time comes around.However, you will not be bombarded with a bunch ofprior warnings about expiring subscriptions. So whenyou get one, paya//en/ion.

Vol 9 (4) December 1995